Alfa GTV-6 at Spa

I can't resist a nice-sounding GTV6...

My reading list

Way out but worth it

Because I can, I will share here some weirder choices from my personal bookshelf. You may not agree with 'weird', indeed weird is the wrong word. Nevertheless I use it advisedly in the sense that I will cover subjects beyond literal truth. And I use truth advisedly as mathematics is the only provable truth. Everything else is either awaiting a mathematical proof or is a belief, a theory or an assumption.

Just to explain my thinking: you may believe in what you can see, hear and/or touch, and that's cool; but it's not necessarily a literal truth. Even if a thousand people see, hear and/or touch that thing it doesn't make it true. It may be real enough to the people concerned but it's not an incontrovertible truth. It may be an illusion. It may be a shared thought. It may be a shared assumption. It's something, but it's not a literal truth. To be a literal truth requires proof. To my mind we can only be certain of mathematical proofs, as I haven't seen any other proof that convincingly lives outside the mind or perception of man.

And I could be wrong about maths. Perhaps there is no independent proof? Ahhh, but that's an undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns....

So to the first installment of my 'way out but worth it' booklist, in no particular order:

• Bill Shakespeare's works in full. An essential lesson in the use of the English language, up there with Fowler's.


• The Elegant Universe (by Brian Greene. Post-Einstein string theory to get you thinking.)


• Anything by Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould. As I said, there are mathematical proofs and there are theories. Some theories are more compelling than others.


• The Torah (the Pentateuch, the Book of Moses: a lively read, basis for Judaism and the Old Testment and a fascinating read on any level)


• The Bible (Greek for 'Books'; The Old and New Testaments: basis for the Christian cults and a brilliant read)


• The Koran (Arabic for 'Recital': another excellent piece of writing and the basis for Islam. I have the Dawood translation)


• The History of Magic (by Eliphas Levi: a great, compelling read. Spot the a ha! 'Harry Potter' moments and see the footprints of Rowling's research)


• The Theory of Celestial influence (by Rodney Collin: immensely detailed, it wallows around trying to 'prove' a case scientifically but falls magnificently short. Can be heavy, clumsy and painful to read... but still worth it for the determined!).

That's just for starters. Let me know what you think.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 9:51 am and is filed under No idea where this one goes, Writing, Religion and Essential Truths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Does it ever stop?

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Brown wins Stage 4 in Germany

Graeme Brown finally delivers for Rabo (Cyclingnews quote and link): However, with 500 metres remaining, the field came back together, just in time for one last suicidal attempt from Jens Voigt (CSC). With that over before it even started, Australian Graeme Brown threw his bike across the line and took his first victory of the year, beating Schumacher and Zabel to the post.

What a relief! He's had his ups and downs, but he looks pretty happy about winning a stage of the Deutschland Tour. Renshaw was in the Top 5 and Zabel has taken the lead. Can he hold on over the mountains? You'd like to hope so, but with Vino one of many contenders just 48secs back, highly unlikely.

On Landis: It's hard to know who's clean, what with masking agents and autologous transfusions, and we have to trust the integrity of the sampling and testing procedure. So is it as robust as we'd like? Cyclingnews gives a rundown on the B sample result here:Christian Prudhomme, Director general of the Tour de France, said Landis is no longer considered champion of the 2006 event, but added: "Until he is found guilty or admits guilt, he will keep the yellow jersey. This is normal. You are not sanctioned before you are found guilty.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Aussies in Germany and Denmark

A good result for 2 Aussies in Stage 3 of the Tour of Germany, as reported by Cyclingnews:
1 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) Team Wiesenhof Akud 4.56.22 (41.16 km/h)
2 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram
3 André Greipel (Ger) T-Mobile Team
4 Luke Roberts (Aus) Team CSC
5 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Credit Agricole

And O'Grady takes yellow in Denmark, again reported by Cyclingnews:
Stage 3 - August 4: Kolding - Odense, 203.7 km Förster scores for Gerolsteiner, as O'Grady takes yellow

Friday, August 04, 2006

Aussies in Denmark

Some Aussies are doing well in the Tour of Denmark... stage 2 - see Cyclingnews for the report: 2 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Team CSC 0.21, 4 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 0.23, 5 Baden Cooke (Aus) Unibet.com, 14 Gene Michael Bates (Aus) Team L.P.R. 0.39

Monday, July 31, 2006

Other sports and doping

Because I can, I will comment on drugs, doping and what have you. It's just my opinion but I personally realised something was truly happening - as against being told by press or dodgy friends what "was" happening - when I spent time in an eastern suburbs gym in Sydney, building up for bike racing (more of a psychological boost than a physical one). This was the mid 1980's. These big, shiny, oily pimply guys were always there lifting massive weights (and gazing into mirrors) and they could sell you "stuff". It reminded me of 'under the stairs' deal at high school, actually, but different stuff. That other stuff you got at the pub and was detrimental to sports performance, or general sanity for that matter. (Not that I did, but some people did do that other stuff, anyway!)

So you could buy any sort of body-building drug at that particular gym, in my experience. Presumably other gyms as well. I also "knew" about the occasional cyclist's drink bottle ("bidon") that (it was suggested) contained alcohol, to give some sort of kick up hills or before a sprint. Don't know how effective it was, but a few people seemed to like it and claimed to "know". Bikes of course are build to carry bidons as well as riders and musette bags, but what about other sports?

'No-Doze' was also big in the '80s for that caffeine kick, and coffee itself gained notoriety in sports where being "aware" and awake was important. Again in cycling there were "special" bananas to be eaten just before a race finish. Now these were reputedly spiked with amphetamines, but who knows the truth? No-one did a laboratory analysis on this sort of stuff at the time and it may have been riders just bragging. But very, very few people were drug tested pre or post race, even at elite State level back then, so anything could have happened. (And I have yet to see a club-level drug test, even now. Tell me if you've seen one!)

So I can imagine, and it is just imagination fueled by innuendo and availability (particularly via the Internet), that some bike racers are using performance enhancing agents to "get noticed"; firstly at club level (basically weekly racing thoughout the year) and probably at State level. They would effectively get away with it. Testing remains something done at higher levels of the sport, not below. Not often, anyway, in my experience, would they get caught. On the other hand I have never myself seen a culture of drug use in cycling at first hand, beyond caffeine and stories of what other riders did. I heard about but didn't see the evidence.

Nevertheless we quite possibly get riders started on this stuff early and then they either chicken out, or get smarter. Or dumber? If there's money involved there's temptation. Of course cycling is not as "wealthy" as some other sports.

So what happens in other sports?

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Web resources - Roadcycling UK

An interesting take on the UK road and TT scene is to be found at RoadcyclingUK. Worth checking out. Here's a snippet on starting road racing in the UK:
Road Racing from scratch By RCUK "I could do that!" Almost invariably it's around the time of the three great tours that many occasional cyclists get so carried away by the unfolding drama, passion and competitive spirit of the Giro d'Italia,Tour de France and Spanish Vuelta that they picture themselves flying along in the midst of an illustrious bunch or riding with relative ease up steep mountain climbs with cheering crowds lining the road. At least that's what appears to be the case, even though you know that the apparent ease at which the riders are "flying" along at an average speed of 45k per hour is deceptive and the whole idea, in fact, may seem totally mad and completely and utterly out of my league - even more so as the prerequisite is incredibly hard training, unbelievable talent and a super-human physique. But cycling is all about sticking at it.